New interfaith center at Tel Aviv University


In an article in HaAretz (8.6.2012), it was announced that Tel Aviv University is establishing a new interfaith academic center that will offer a new approach to the study of religion.

Read article on HaAretz site here

Tel Aviv University is to establish the first interfaith center of its kind in Israel, in cooperation with the University of Cambridge in England. The center will conduct comparative research on the world's three major monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - to dispel "dangerous" stereotypes, according to the center's head.

"In Israel, people do not know their own religion, and widespread images of Christianity and Islam are dangerous. Not all religious Muslims belong to Al-Qaida," said Menachem Fisch, a professor of philosophy and the history of science at Tel Aviv University.

Fisch is heading up the project, which will have one site in Israel and another in England. "There is fear and aversion both in Europe and Israel of Muslims, and the way to change perceptions begins with understanding those who are different," he added.

Fisch said dispelling stereotypes that adherents of one religion have about another can only be accomplished through study. The center's comparative approach to religious study is motivated by recognition of the three religions' mutual influence.

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